2016 Hugo Awards Announced

The 74th World Science Fiction Convention, MidAmeriCon II, announced the winners of the 2016 Hugo Awards at a ceremony on the evening of Saturday, August 20, 2016. The ceremony was hosted by Toastmaster, Pat Cadigan, assisted by Jan Siegel. 3,130 valid ballots were received and counted in the final ballot.

Poiboy: There are no “judges.” The Hugo Awards are selected by the vote of the thousands of members of the World Science Fiction Convention. The awards are not decided by a Select Secret Panel of Judges. This was the choice of thousands of members of Worldcon. The details of how the members are posted in a PDF linked to the announcement.

I love both shows, but AKA Smile was definitely the better of the two. That show made me sit at the edge of the seat. I’m sorry, but Doctor Who did not. Although the latter finally returned to form this past season after the dismal second half of season 7 and all of season 8, it wasn’t enough to make the season 9 finale a better episode than AKA Smile.

While I enjoyed all five of the Best Novel nominees, I thought that *The Fifth Season* was the most creative and original of the five and deserved the award. I actually thought this was a particularly strong field of novels, better than many years, including last year.

I’m just saddened by the whole thing, as I used to be able to use the Hugo Awards to help decide what to read (among other methods). There’s too many books to read them all, so just use the combined opinions of readers to help decide. But, now, it’s so chaotic, it’s not useful.